The Truth

"Bellij, you monster!" yelled s3c0ndh4nd. "Unhand me!"

 

Bellij smirked at his captive.

 

"I think not," he said. "But what I will do for you is enlighten you about how you found yourself in this unfortunate position."

 

s3c0ndh4nd decided not to protest. He was curious as to how one moment he had been dying, and the next he was in a well guarded cell. Besides, both of his arms were in shackles, and two guards with spears stood at either side of him.

 

Bellij commenced his story.

 

"As you well know, I have always despised your petty Union. Not necessarily because of the people in it, but because of the message it preaches. I harbour no hatred against you at all. Only against the message you bestow upon the world. Your talk of love and friendship has been detrimental to my mission.

 

Thus, I decided to try and eliminate your Union. First I decided to send the source and his Infection to kill you, figuring that if you were removed, the Union would fall apart. I didn’t expect Kakunaman to show up at your side, and thus I lost one of my finest generals. Then I decided to launch a full out campaign against you. I thought that I would be able to overwhelm your forces due to our sheer numbers. Again I was wrong. Your troops had far greater skill than mine, and after two months I had made no significant gains. It was about this time that I realized what a shame it would be to have to kill you. "How beneficial would it be," thought I. "to have a general of his calibre on my side for once?" Thus I began hatching a plan for bringing you here.

 

Of course I knew that there was no way you would join my army through persuasion, so I decided that forcing you was the required method. But how?

 

Weeks passed as I pondered that single question: How could I get you in a position with none of your allies around you? It seemed impossible, as many of your followers would gladly give up their lives for yours. 

 

And then it hit me:

 

What if your friends believed you to be dead? Then surely they would abandon you.

 

I initially decided on a kiddnapping plot, but abandonned this when I heard of this wonderful new drug being developed by my chemists. When applied, it would bring metabolic functions to a near standstill. Enough to keep the victim alive, but not enough for the person to exist in anything more than a coma. The heartbeat and pulse would remain undected, thus giving the person the appearence of being dead. It was supposed to be used on our own troops, to perserve the lives of the severly wounded until their external injuries healed, but I saw that it could be put to good use on you.

 

The final problem was how to get the drug to you, but that was easily resolved. I paid one of your soldiers a good sum of money, and he did the deed for me. There are few things that people won’t do if you over them enough money, I find.

 

You know most of the rest of the story. You slowly declined, and ‘died’.

 

 

A while later, I had my men dig you up, carefully fix up the grave so that it looked untouched, and bring you to me. We administered the antidote, and a short while later, you woke up in my prison cell.

 

So here is your current situation. You have a choice: You can choose to lead my troops into battle to destroy Kakunaman, the last remaining connection that The Union has, or you can remain here, and be tortured until you either submit to my will or die. Go ahead, the choice is yours."

 

s3c0ndh4nd stood in silence. Ever the strategist, all of the possible scenarios began playing out in his head. Minutes passed. Finally, he spoke.

 

"Bellij, you have brought me here against my will. You have killed and injured my friends. You stand against everything that I support. You are easily one of the lowest forms of life on the planet. I may die, but at least I will have my soul intact. I will be damned to hell before I serve you!"

 

Bellij smiled calmly.

 

"I thought you might say that." he said. "Take him away. We’ll start his… ‘attitude modification’ tomorrow."

 

s3c0ndh4nd bowed his head as he was led back to his cell. Had anyone been paying attention, they would have seen a smile on his face, too.

 

 

Scott Cole

“Cody, my main man!” exclaimed Todd seven minutes later upon seeing his friend exit the bus. He extended his arm, and they exchanged a handshake. “Was yesterday as loony for you as it was for me?”

 

“It wasn’t that bad for me,” Cody said. “Why, what happened to you?”

 

“I thought that everyone else knew that we’d gone back in time,” Todd said, chuckling. “I asked Scott what he thought about having to re-do all of his cross country races.”

 

“And what’d he say?”

 

“He laughed and called me a twerp. Then he went out for a run."

 

“What a guy,” Cody mused.

 

“Yeah, but he’s cool. He gave me his pep talk again,”

 

“Pep talk?”

 

“Yeah, at the beginning of the year he gave me this whole speech about Julie. He said ‘Look dweeb, any guy can land any broad, even you. Because I’m such a nice guy, I’m gonna give you some help with your chick… what’s her name? Jules? Julia? Whatever. Anyways, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Girls like stuff. The key to a girl’s heart is through your wallet. If you buy Jenna flowers, or cheap jewelry, or teddy bears, she’ll fall for you eventually. No girl can resist.’ ‘Really?’ I asked, and he said ‘Trust me, how do you think I got a date with Melissa Summers… what a babe she was too! Anyways, buy her stuff, and you’ll get your girl.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, and he said ‘Don’t worry, Toddy, you’re learning from a master.’”

 

Cody nodded.

 

“So that’s where you get it from.”

 

Todd shrugged.

 

“Wait, did you say Melissa Summers was his girlfriend?” asked a confused Cody. “Wasn’t his girlfriend’s name Haley something-or-other?”

 

“Haley Seamson?” Todd laughed. “Nah, she was his October girlfriend. Haley replaced Melissa, and then he replaced her with Mary Thompson in November.”

 

Cody raised an eyebrow.

 

“Scott likes to switch it up every month or so. He says that having the same girl around for too long is boring.”

 

“So what does he think about you and Julie? You’ve been after her for two solid years now.”

 

“He says that these past two years don’t count, since we were never boyfriend and girlfriend. He tells me that I’m wasting too much effort on this one girl and that I should just give up.”

 

“Then why did he bother giving you that pep talk?”

 

“He wants to teach me a lesson, apparently. He says that once I date Julie for a little while, I’ll realize that she’s not that great and I’ll learn my lesson and never waste that much time on a girl again.” 

 

“And you believe him?”

 

“Nah,” Todd admitted. “but here’s what I figure: Scott can get a new girl to fall for him every month effortlessly by acting how he does, right? So if I do what he does even half as good, I’ll have her as my girlfriend in two months. Before we went back in time, I was getting pretty close too.” Then Todd realized his predicament and smacked his forehead. “Oh geez!” he exclaimed. “We went back in time! That means I have to start all over again with her, don’t I?”

 

Cody nodded grimly.

 

“Aw man,” Todd said, looking down and kicking at a stone on the ground. “I almost had her,”

 

“Relax buddy,” Cody said, slapping his friend on the back. “You can do it again, and it’ll be even easier than last time because now you know what works and what doesn’t.”

 

This seemed to cheer Todd up.

 

“Heck, for Julie, I’ll wait another fifty months if I have to. Two more isn’t that bad. Besides, who else is there for me? The only other girl in our class that I speak to is Kelsey, and well…” he left the sentence unfinished, since there was no was to complete it without an awkward silence resulting.

Whadda Rush

Holy freaking hell comrades!

 

 

That was fucking off the… fucking…

 

SHIT!

 

 

 

Awesome fucking…

 

 

 

 

Mates, the past two nights have been fucking awesome. There aren’t words to describe how I’m feeling right now. I love talking, but right now I can’t think of what to say.

 

 

The play has been awesome. Everything has gone right, aside from a few minor shits.

 

I’m backstage, and the rush is still crazy.

 

I don’t know what happened, but just before the show something took hold of me, I fucking shouted at the top of my lungs "HOICKETY CHOICK ON C!!!"

 

I’ve never done that before. Knowing me, you would think I’d have done it a thousand times already, but no. To be honest, I was even a little nervous about trying. But I did, and I got the perfect response, which was of course 20 or so booming voices shouting: "S-M-C! HOICKETY CHOICK, HOICKETY CHOICK, CHALMA CHALMA CHI! RICKETY RACKETY RICKETY RACKETY S-M-C. CHI CHA RAH RAH, ST. MIKE’S, ST. MIKE’S RAH RAH HEYYYYYYYYY!!!!"

 

(Now, as a quick side note, right after the curtains closed, someone else decided to try and start a hoickety choick. The response he got was "S-M-C! HOICKETY CHOICK, HOICKETY CHOICK HEY WHAT ARE WE DOING! NOT NOW!" (When you try to start a hoickety choick and no one joins in, the result is mass embarrassment. Just imagine shouting a phrase like "HOICKETY CHOICK ON C!" in public.) I felt a bit bad for him, but at the same time glad that my hoickety choick was the only one that day.)

 

But yeah, whadda rush. The adrenaline was like POW! I’m still buzzing.

 

This has been one of the better weeks of my life in recent memory. 14 hour days of work and rehearsal, no more than 5 hours of sleep on any given night, and usually closer to 4 or even 3, but it’s all been made worthwhile in the last two nights. I’m a mess. I’m exhausted… but I feel amazing. Absolute madness. From shakeups to golden potatoes, to money bag mishaps, it’s just been fucking unreal.

 

You think I’m doing this again next year?

 

Writer’s Strike Update

The strike is now nearly 100 days in the making, and it seems that we’re mere days – perhaps only hours – from a deal being made.

 

Here’s my opinion: Damn the Director’s Guild.

 

 

If you’ve been paying attention, the Director’s Guild of America made a deal with the producers a short while ago. This essentially removed the strongest card from the writer’s deck (If you remember the earlier blog I wrote, I suggested the potential of an industry wide strike, which would in essence force the producers to surrender). The producers strategically offered the directors a very generous deal which the directors would have been crazy to reject. Get it? The producers did this to fuck the writers over, and it worked.

 

When this happened a few weeks ago, I said "Damn. This strike won’t last long now." Unfortunately, it seems I was right.

 

So, the writers have been forced to make some concessions. The deal they’ve been offered is… not good. It’s not insulting, but it’s certainly not a WGA victory. To sum is up briefly, the writers get a decent amount from new media sales (about half of what they demanded), and no new concessions on the DVD front. Not good, as I said.

 

The problem is that the strike hasn’t been as effective as I hoped it would be. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and others came back on the air without their writers, ruining that part of the strike’s effect. (Unlike Ellen DeGeneres, who came back on the air shortly after the strike began to save her own ass, these three waiting as long as they could and paid their staff out of their own wallets, but were forced to return when the networks threatened to fire the rest of their staffs, including the writers.)

 

As well, copious amounts of reality T.V. (which requires no writers) have been shoved down our throats (American Gladiators revival?), which also deadened the effect of the strike.

 

 

The producers have been dicks. Crafty, strategic, brilliant dicks, but still dicks. They’ve fought a very smart strike, taking away the writers’ main motivation for continuing the strike. Brilliant strategy, and because of that it looks like this strike will end in a WGA defeat. (The writers have made some small gains, true, but overall, they’ve lost.

 

 

 

It’s not over yet though.

 

 

 

The WGA members are voting on whether or not to accept the deal. A simple YES/NO vote.

 

If yes wins, the strike is over. If no wins, it continues. Simple as that

 

The idea expressed by some is this: "The first three months of the strike haven’t gone well. Why would the next three go any better? Accept the deal."

 

 

The writers have just one more card left. The actors still have not made a deal with the producers, and the actors seem to be more supportive of the writers than the directors are. Thus, if the strike goes on until July, there is still the potential for the actors and writers to go on a dual-strike. Even without the directors joining in, a writer-actor strike would still be damned powerful. Imagine what would happen to Hollywood without actors!

 

 

 

There you go. My vote on this is a resounding NO, but my vote doesn’t count. We’ll know the results by tomorrow. I’ll be praying that the writers have some sense and don’t concede defeat just yet.

 

 

-Michael Danese

 

 

A Little Break

Hola kidfucks.

 

So get this:

 

 

Your beloved Kakunaman is gonna be helping with the upcoming musical: Jesus Christ Superstar.

 

"Helping" is used loosely there. I’m pretty much running the show. 

 

Actor? Nah, I’m backstage, where all the real shit goes on.

 

Here’s something special:

 

Originally, my official title was "Prop Manager – Stage Left". But then Prop Manager – Stage Right dropped out. Unless they can replace him within the next… 48 hours, I’ll be the sole prop manager. That calls for a more official title, methinks. "Prop Master", maybe? Nah, still too weak.

 

Oh yeah.

 

 

"Prop Master Extraordinaire"

 

It’s perfect. Short enough that it won’t be banned by teh_adm1ns, but long enough to almost capture just how fucking awesome I am. Almost. You’d need a fucking epic poem or novel series to truly capture that, but hey. It’s good enough.

 

I might pop in once or thrice to brag about how amazing opening night was, but then, I might not.

 

 

While I’m gone, just remember this for me: If you ever lose a game of tic-tac-toe, you should be forced to play 6 bullet russian roulette, and have the first shot.

 

My Blue Balloon

Scandalize! We must reprise our roles as kings, golden rings, violent things will try to stop us, creatures from the black lagoon, crimson room, autumn bloom. Lovely flower in the sea. Friend fear not, ’tis only me. Return from the dead, I’ve said, "It’s all in your head". But you’ve fed your sense of dread and suddenly nothing is possible. Like so many years ago. I had them both, I swore an oath. Protect and defend, but never pretend. "You are not who you used to be." She said to me, I disagree. I do what I want, not what you say. "I simply cannot live this way. You’ll die alone, cold and grey." And he said "I’m not your friend, this is the end, I can’t stand no more, you’re better off dead." Now he’s gone and so is she. I’ve started to fade, now just a shade, a shadow, a spectre, former protector of two defectors. Alert! We’re sinking! We must convert, revert to our former state. Change or curve the course of fate. Too late, you say? Then just you wait. Compromise? How I despise that word, and yet, to save our lives I have no choice but to devise. I must or I’m dust. Repent, prevent that doom from the black lagoon, crimson room, you’ll be my bloom, my blue balloon.